SLEEPING BOY’S BURGLARIES

Taranaki Daily News, 18 August 1934, Page 15 (Supplement)

SLEEPING BOY’S BURGLARIES

Committed Series Of Expert Shop Crimes TTOW a boy of 11, while sleep-walk-ing, committed a series of expert burglaries, was described •by Professor A. E. Heath, of Swansea University. The professor was dealing at the Summer School of the British Social Hygiene Council at Welwyn, Hertfordshire, with the question of punishment as a deterrent to crime. ' There had been, he said, a number of very clever shop burglaries in the locality of the boy’s home. They were neatly executed and the methods used were unlike any used by known burglars. Fingerprints were taken and the police were astonished to discover that they were those of a child. They made inquiries at the local school, and, without hesitation, ( in answer to a question to his class, the boy declared that he knew all about the burglaries because he had dreamed about them. Further investigations revealed that the boy was the actual burglar, but was quite unaware of the fact. As his parents were well aware, he was a sleep-walker, and he had got up and broken into the shops in his sleep with tools used at school. Several eminent scientists have stated that the action of a sleepwalker is an aimless one. A sleepwalker would be as likely ,to remove jewellery from a drawer as a piece of cake from a tin. Sleep-walkers have been known to rob themselves.